Animals kept in barren zoo enclosures often pace madly—and, thumbless, have twiddle-equivalents: licking or chewing skin or fur obsessively and constantly, pulling out their own feathers, rubbing their ears or face, rocking back and forth.

Out from the sparkling mist stretched two hands, enormously long, six-fingered, thumbless, a faint tracery of golden scales upon their white backs, utterly unhuman and still in some strange way beautiful, radiating power and — all womanly!

Tavara bandaged her hands with a thick black foul-smelling salve that felt cold and gluey, followed by yards and yards of bandage going halfway up her arms until her hands resembled thumbless boxing gloves.

Lord Intef with his sons, Menset and Sobek, those two thumbless heroes, stood at the head of the great concourse of the nobles and the city fathers of Thebes that waited upon the quay to greet the king.